


89P13

by EmilliaGryphon



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Comics), Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), MCU, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 89P13, Angst, Animal Abuse, Blood, Blood and Gore, Creation, Cybernetics, Gen, Gore, I did not think this was going to get this violent, Injury, Medical Experimentation, Medical Procedures, Medical Trauma, More angst, Rockets Origins, Sorry Not Sorry, Sorry Rocket, Torture, Violence, explicit - Freeform, grievous bodily harm, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-12 13:20:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 13,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17468354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmilliaGryphon/pseuds/EmilliaGryphon
Summary: You have studied your entire life, sacrificed friendships, lovers, family for this-the message now on your tablet.  Holding your breath, you tap the message and your heart jitters, you’ve been accepted. There it is plain as day. Accepted to The Halfworld Bioweaponry Laboratories. You start Tuesday.My take on Rocket's origins.****WARNING: Animal abuse, PTSD, Graphic descriptions of violence and gore.****





	1. Chapter 1

You have a PhD in bioengineering and another in animal behavior. You have studied your entire life, sacrificed friendships, lovers, family for this-the message now on your tablet. Holding your breath, you tap the message and your heart jitters, you’ve been accepted. There it is plain as day. Accepted to The Halfworld Bioweaponry Laboratories. You start Tuesday. You do not have many things to pack, aside from books and diagrams. Halfworld will provide you with lodging and meals, you can finally have what you’ve always wanted: to be entirely dedicated to your work, on the frontier of biological and technological engineering. 

Your orientation is extensive. You see the dorms, the cafeteria the recreation room and common spaces. You sit in a minimalist classroom listening to a senior scientist explain the mission and vision of Halfworld Labs. You are shown pictures and videos, but you are not allowed to see the actual test rooms or the animals until you are given clearance. You wait in eager anticipation, you sleep two hours and write the other five, studiously crafting drafts, ideas. You drink seven cups of coffee and clean you white coat until it is without a wrinkle.

You get security clearance after two weeks. You walk the underground tunnels like you own the place. Everything is wide and bright and bursting with potential. Immaculate labs with the latest technology, opulent library of records and manuscripts. You work diligently, handling every rabbit and deer and mouse and possum with precious care. You assist in the training and conditioning of hundreds of animals by the time you are promoted. 

They congratulate you on your accomplishments. Your leadership and ingenuity. You bow your head modestly as your superior shakes your hand.

She tells you that one of the subjects, a Procyon labeled 89P is pregnant again, third litter. You will be put in charge of the offspring’s development.” You beam and go home to your trailer that night already planning. They will be the greatest enhanced mammals the galaxy has ever seen.

89P gives birth to five kits. Since there have been 11 others prior to this birth the first kit out of 89P this time is named 89P12 followed by 89P13, 89P14, 15 and 16. You cut each of them from out from the sow. They shriek and twist and mewl. Little limbs still curled up, yet they cry. They do not want to be born yet. It is too cold and too bright. But you smile as you grip them. They will be your greatest achievement. Two weeks later you discover that 89P 16 and 13 have red eyes. 

A mutation side effect from the gene splicing over the years. You make a note of it in your log and instruct your team to begin training them. They cry and squeak when they are taken from 89P. You have a handler muzzle the sow and inject her with a sedative. The kits cry trying to wriggle away, they are tiny and soft and easily manipulated. 89P struggles against the drugs in its system. Its teeth are bared, and its fur raised. It runs at the glass of its cage, frantically calling to its kits. They hear her and 89P12 bites one of your handlers. The woman covers the kit with a heavy cloth until it goes silent. The sow claws at the roof of the cage, scratching against the priceless enhanced glass. Finally, you watch the sow’s eyes get heavy. It stumbles back and forth, trying to raise itself up in a futile effort. The handlers take the kits away, the piercing cries echoing off the white washed walls. 

The subjects will begin their training before any surgeries. You cannot risk losing them under the knife after all and they are so impressionable at this age. You have them strapped down and expose them to auditory and visual stimulation. Guns going off, bombs being dropped, the revving engine of a ship. They watch the spectacle not knowing yet that they are intended to do such deeds. When 89P16 tries to close its eyes after an hour you give it a shock. Its body convulses and it trembles, mewling pathetic. Soon you shock 12 and 13 when their heads begin to droop and their eyes close. They are shocked until they learn to keep their eyes open. 

The subjects are brought back to individual cages after 16 hours of visual stimulation with the videos. They cry for each other, pace, try to get out. Dexterous hands attempt to slip through the bars only to receive a shock if they do so. But there are toys in the cages to entertain them. 89P14 reaches for a small rainbow bouncy ball, its whiskers quivering as it reaches out and shrills. Sharp spikes eject outward stabbing the tender palm of its right front paw, it shrinks back it a corner for some hours, only to try another purple felt toy. This time 14 shrieks when electricity fires through its tiny body, fur on end and burning, limbs spasming. It curls in a ball on its side and after three days and four wounds later it makes no attempt at the shiny inviting toys. A new toy is placed in its cage. A toy gun. 14 ever curious shyly approaches the new item going forward then back with its muzzle. Forward and back and then at last it sniffs and reaches out to the gun, and this time there is no pain. It holds the toy, sniffing it and licking it. It takes 14 two weeks to disassociate from any of the toys except for the ones modeled after weapons. It takes 11 six days, 13 takes a week and a half.


	2. Chapter 2

The first procedure happens when the kits are three months old.  Enhancing a quadruped to a biped is no easy feat. Extensive cybernetics and skeletal reinforcements will be needs coupled with muscle stretching and suspension. 89P16 is first for it is the largest of the kits, fitting the muzzle around its jaws takes work, the iron pricking its tongue as the handlers wedge it between the subject’s teeth. Blood and foam flick on to your coat as it is wrangled to the gurney. You strap its limbs and tail downward until the skin pinches. Once in the operating theater the subject’s eyes wince at the bright light. You transfer it to the table, and it squirms, tail lashing. One claw manages to scratch a technician when they try to hook up the anesthetic. You already hold a scalpel in your hand, eager to begin and curl your fist in a rage, striking the raccoon kit across it’s muzzled face. It lets out a pained squeak your knuckles having jostled the sharp muzzle. Blood leaks from its teeth into its fur and it lies stunned. With a not to the technician you begin. Breaking the bones is the easy part, they are still somewhat malleable and snap easily with the blunt hammer you use. The hips and knees take more time, they are hard to break, stuck in place connected to the oh so precious spinal column but finally you and your team manage to snap the pelvis and widen the hips outward. You don’t mind pushing the soft tissue aside, all pink and lubricated with blood and bile and other fluids. The lower intestines are quite cumbersome to deal with as you are trying to insert a cybernetic rod into the right hip, so you decide to scoop them out. Your fellow doctor holds the tray while you heave coils out of the cavity, careful not to tug too hard. With those out of the way you finish pressing the left hip outward though it resists you eventually bend it to your will. 89P16 is crudely sown up after you put its innards back in. Yellowish fluid mixed with blood seeps through the stitches and you can see the black cybernetics through the shaved flesh. Not bad for the first of many surgeries you think on the way back to its cage. You deposit 89P16 in its enclosure and go back to the lab to write up your notes. It will require at least four more procedures before the skeletal restructuring is complete, then another two for the muscles and the ligaments. You factor in additional operations for the kits growth rates.

89P13 is next. It too hisses and growls and claws as you wench the muzzle over its head. It’s chittering grates on your ears so you tighten the clamps around i’s jaws. It thrashes all the way to the operating room, little body buckling under the restraints. It tears at its fur and does not stop it’s fight until you pump the anesthesia into it on full blast. Its throat gags and chest inflate in panic, reacting to this new thing that is not air. It’s red eyes dart about until it can no longer fight any more and its gaze goes rolling backward into its head. When you slice into its flesh the subject jerks its clever little paws and as you continue to peel back its skin 89P13 shits itself on the table, the defecation soaking into its fur and blood with a fetid stink.

The kits, no, subjects they are growing older now; the subjects handle their first round of modifications in varying degrees.  89P14 gets an infection in its left leg and has to be opened up again. It refuses to eat, and its hair begins to fall out. It curls in a ball in the corner of its cage and does not even resist the gloved hands that read for it. 89P11 claws at its stitches and almost gnaws out the cybernetic bolt in its left hip. You have it muzzled at all times, filing a tube between its teeth for food. 89P13 has to be re-opened after it chews at the stitches on its lower abdomen. When it awakes listless from the anesthetic it mewls and cries, but it does not dare resist the next time it is taken for weapons training. 89P15 is the first subject to die. It perishes under the knife on the third surgery. Just when its right shoulder is being modified. Its eyes are open, but it is knocked out with the gas. You see its quivering little heart beat faster and faster under layers of tissue. The small organ pumps furiously, you watch it twitch and shudder and slide your hand between its lungs to hold the slimy thing. It vibrates madly and though you shout for the defibrillator by the time one of your assistants bring it over, it is too late.

Afterwards you consult with your team. They determine the anesthetic to be the cause of cardiac arrest and that settles it. You do not use anesthetic when you crack 89P13’s chest and expand its shoulders and ribs. It kicks and growls and whines and foams at the mouth against the clamps that bind it down to the table. Blood splatters your coat when you break skin with your knife. 89P13 lifts its head up as much as it can, neck engorged as it presses against the leather strap. Ears are pressed downward, tiny nostrils puffing in and out with effort. You watch its red eyes stare down its own muzzle to where it's fur and flesh has been cut and opened and pulled apart. It looks at its own quivering insides, taking it in by degrees though of course it doesn’t’ understand. It’s cognitive electro and hydro therapy hasn’t progressed that far. Still you see its face look down at its own bones and clear mucus. Its eyes widen, its face crumbling. The subjects head sways briefly while its lungs rapidly inflate and deflate, finally its head falls with a thud to the aluminum table. It does not come to until you finish driving the second bolt into its left clavicle.  It awakes with a screech and arches against the straps, huffing and chittering. It is awake long enough to scratch your forearm, a sharp pain cutting into your own warm skin. You examine your own blood red and bright streaming in a thick line down to your elbow. You throw 89P13 into its cage with force and smile at the sound of its pathetic whimper when its sore form clangs against the bars.


	3. Chapter 3

Behavioral therapy, conditioning and training are equally important as physical enhancements. On days when there are no physical procedures each of the remaining kits are exposed to more to weapons training and piloting stimulation. This is done two ways. First through cognitive therapy utilizing videos, auditory clips, electric shock and cold water as well as the actual weapons themselves. The second method is through a series of “games.” You teach the subjects to identify different types of guns, ammunition, magazines, explosives, and other heavy artillery. The subject is given an electric shock if it does not identify the right type of gun, if it is to slow putting the bomb together etc. 89P11 struggles with the exercises the most. It puts javarian three caliber rounds in a Kree blaster and gets beaten to a bloody pulp. Its recovery takes a week and the handlers have to force feed it, its broken jaw making the job all the more difficult. 89P14 is good at weaponry, it has a good aim but it when it is less skilled at constructing bombs. You watch it from behind the reinforced glass as it takes the small parts in its hands. Its hands that are still jerking in pain from the new cybernetics. It concentrates and you examine its brain scans. It is thinking but can’t quite put two and two together. You watch it construct than reconstruct the bomb, unsure of how to connect the last two wires. It ponders what to do and finally you watch it plug the red wire into the black jack and the black wire into the red jack it looks at the finished bomb, leaning down to sniff at it. It blinks, nosing it and…. You wince as there is a banging sound and the little animal lets out a scream unlike any you’ve heard thus far. When the smoke clears 89P14 is on its back, fur still burning. You signal for a handler to enter the bright room. They step tentatively close to the raccoon and puts a hand to their mouth making a sound of disgust. They pick up the subject by its tail, turning it around and you take note of the gaping bloody raw hole where its muzzle used to be. 

89P13 is nearly as disastrous. It blows off its arm once, sinew and muscle tissue dashed about the clean linoleum flooring. It lets out an agonized shriek and tries to crawl away when the handler comes to collect its stray body part. Luckily you are able to reattach the arm with a cybernetic bolt and socket. This time 89P13 doesn’t pass out from the pain or the shock if seeing its own bone fused with metal. This time its red eyes watch every movement of you and your surgeons. Beady eyes looking in morbid fascination as you fix its arm back into place, bending it too and throw. It yelps and twists, but it doesn’t go unconscious. The next time you test 89P13’s aim with an Askavarian Automatic it shoots itself by accident, the bullet going into its abdomen. It tries to hide limping to the corner when the handler comes in to gather it. You watch it shrink, curling itself as small as it can be, though that is not much. With its modified skeleton it cannot bend its spine as it used to, it clenches its teeth against the pain and makes a swipe the gloved technician. Eventually three of them drag the fuming subject back to the gurney and strap it on. It shakes and whimpers, trying to nose at its swollen bloody abdomen the entire way. 89P14 blows itself up a week later when it makes another attempt at the bomb exercise. You walk through the rows of cages, the white light illuminating every subject, but it does nothing to cover the miasma of infection and urination, sour flesh and rubbing alcohol. 89P11 paces in its cage, walking upright but walking with a severe limp, tail dragging. 89P12 is standing leaning against the back of its cage but its right arm is out of its socket and its eyes stare unblinking straight ahead, its entire chest bare and breathing uneven breaths. 89P13 is crouched, its stomach crudely bandaged, though by the smell and the looks of dark wine red rimmed with yellow the gauze hasn’t been changed in some time. At least the subject’s back is straight. It cowers when you pass its cage, its pupil-less eyes looking at you with a wary gaze, feverish and shaking.

“Don’t look at me that way P13,” you snap. “You don’t want to be punished, again do you?” 89P13 was punished with icy water yesterday for taking too long to devise an adequate escape from a containment chamber. It only wipes at its face with its paws. “Good,” the subject backs away to the farthest left of its cage trying to curl its tail around itself. “I’m only trying to make you better,” you change your tone, softer. “You want to feel, better don’t you?” 89P13 lets out a shrill whine. “Then you have to do what you are told so that I can make you the best you can be.” The subject looks at you with those inhuman eyes. There is something in those eyes something profoundly disturbing. This time it is the hair on your neck that rises. You reach through the bars, sticking 89P13 with the electric prongs. The light spits and its cybernetics alight with the shock, it lets out a screech which alerts the other subjects. P13’s cries can be heard even as you exit the lab. 

You grow inpatient with the lack of progress in six months. The mistakes, the injuries the subjects haven’t even begun cerebral enhancement yet. Luckily that is all about to change.


	4. Chapter 4

89P13 is the first to undergo the pilot cerebral enhancement for it has displayed the most intelligence with its conditioning and training. Your team is still working out the cybernetic kinks in its spinal cord, but its brain should still be workable.  It is critical the subjects are awake for this operation as well. P13 is strapped down and tries in a futile attempt burrow away into the restraints this time instead of fighting them. It shakes its head wildly as its fur is shaved, resulting in a cut on its right ear. When you reach for the saw you have to crank the music up in the operating theater to drown out its irritating ear-splitting shrieks, every one of the pain receptors in its 3’ body firing all at once. You can hardly contain your excitement as you open its little skull, like a lid uncovering treasure beneath. A canvass ready to be worked. So much potential so much room for improvement. No number of textbooks or diagrams or graphics have prepared you for this beauty. This primal blank slate on which you can paint and mold, shape and manipulate. Granted it’s not exactly easy to make out such beauty, the knotted brain tissue under the blood and fluid. P13’s breathing goes from panicked to hyperventilating, chewing madly at its muzzle which only nicks its tongue sharply. You reach in with your scalpel aimed at the cerebral cortex.

“We don’t want to scramble its brain too badly,” you teach as you go. “We don’t want a repeat of the 89P02,” you remember seeing the data pad on that subject.  “We still want it to be functional.”  89P13’s body twitches as you work. An eye twitch there, a leg spasm here. It moans when you fix the first cybernetic implant into its neural tissue, pressing gently until it clicks, and you hook up the wiring to the stem of its brain. The little jelly like organ quivers in its fluid, thick and clear, it sticks to your gloves. 89P13 snarls and tries to snap but the muzzle. It stops snapping when you jam in the fourth cybernetic receiver into its frontal cortex. Instead it only lets out a bedraggled moan and goes rigid as a board. You check its vitals, still functioning. Drool drips from its opened mouth as you finish with the last cybernetic panel; for this surgery at least. You fix a clear enhanced glass helmet to 89P13’s head and attach all the wiring necessary. It will be suspended in the sensory deprivation chamber until all of the cranial and subcarinal cybernetics are put in place.

“Look it’s foot is jiggling like a dog!” One of the technicians observes haughtily as you supervise the post-op set up. Indeed, the subjects left leg incessantly kicks at the air. Must be a fluke, you hope that is the only defect. You seal the chamber, watching 89P13’s fur ripple in the luke-warm jelly in which it is suspended. Its eyes are closed, and you are able to breathe a sigh of relief.

___

“This is wrong,” the orthopedic specialist makes up their mind after 89P13’s fourth cerebral surgery. The subject fractured its own skull trying to get free of the restraining helmet. Presently you have your wrist embedded in the center 89P13’s brain, between the bridge of the two hemispheres. Gently of course as you place the tiny cybernetic enhancement deep in the slick tissue. The subject has since given up its mad rabid frenzy of fighting. It lets out a lethargic moan every now and then, its tail swooshing when you hit a nerve. “I didn’t come here to torture animals.” 

“Why did you come here?”

“To study, to observe, to learn. But this,” they gesture to 89P13’s bare chest. Indeed, its fur has gotten increasingly mangier and has fallen out in clumps. Its flesh raised and irritated, red from where the skin was graphed over the bulkier enhancements. “This is wrong.”

 “What,” you narrow your eyes through your magnifiers and glance up at the internal images of P13’s brain cavity; just a few more inches. You push at the soft neural receptors an meticulously attach the cybernetic chip. “What did you expect to do? Read all day? Oh no, we are _doing_ things here. Actual things. We are pushing the boundaries of what is possible.”

“Pushing the boundaries of what is ethical,” the surgeon challenges. “This, this is not ethical.”  You watch them look at 89P13. You’ve seen that look before, sympathy. You retract your hand from P13’s brain and it lets out a squeal. “The doctor has been on their feet all day,” you look to the security guards standing by (P16 leapt out of its restraints mid operation yesterday and mauled an attending’s face so ever since then guards have been posted for each procedure). They approach the doctor, grabbing them by their arms and escorting them roughly from the room. “This is sadistic! Madness!” Their cries are muffled by P13’s keening as you begin to replace the top of its skull and reach for the laser to reattach the flesh. You will deal with the insubordination later.

P16 is becoming too clever for its own good. After the initial surgery it begins to respond to yes and no commands during its conditioning.

“Is that the right cartridge 89P16?” You ask through the protective glass. The subject turns to you and for the first time it nods in recognition. It is right.

“If you chew out those cybernetics you will most likely bleed to death,” you warn it after its fifth test of the day, this one a lethal maze of spikes and electricity. P16 looks at you expecting a reward but you only look down at the wretched thing. There is no fur left on it and the scars run like pink rivers through is torso. P16 blinks at you, its eyes attentive. “Do you understand me P16? Those cybernetic panels are connected to your nerves.” You point to the grey metal sticking through its skull. The subject nods vigorously when you ask it if it understands. The next morning you go to fetch P16 and it is dead in its cage, a bloody cybernetic panel lying beside it. Brain tissue still sticking the metal. Your team speculates as to whether or not it was intentional. It makes no difference to you. You are down to subjects P11 P12 and P13.


	5. Chapter 5

P13 continues to be troublesome. You find it out of its cage one morning after its latest round of piloting now that its neurons should be fully grown to the cerebral enhancements. It did relatively well but now it snarls and hisses, back against the doors. A handler comes armed with electric prongs and a shock collar. It puts up a good fight, sharp little claws and nimble hands wracking across one of the handler’s cheeks. In the end, you have to send two of the guards to contain the violent little thing. They turn to their arm bands and press a small button as you’ve shown them. 89P13 cries out as the cybernetic wiring in its back sends burning pain through its warped spine.

“Hit it,” you instruct after its been muzzled. Its claws try to pry at the shock collar resulting in a painful jolt as 4,000 kieto watts are shocked through its nerves. P13 lets out a silent scream and goes rigid collapsing on the floor. The guard looks at you but you only nod and watch it stick the prong into P13’s stomach area where fresh stitches still ooze. This time P13 does not make to fight, it only curls tight around itself trembling.  “This cannot be tolerated P13,” you seize its brittle wrist in your hand and haul it to its feet though it shrieks at being pulled to a biped stance, still a work in progress. You hear its hip crack, but it has no choice but to teeter behind you trying to keep up as you stride to the operating room. P13 shakes its head wildly, baring its teeth. You get the skull saw and slam it down on the table, the cybernetic panels in its back making a hard whack against the metal. P13 kicks and writhes. “I’ve gone through such lengths to improve you, you and the rest of the subjects and this is the thanks I get?” Rage courses through you. You take the skull saw and bring it to its wrist. It nearly levitates off the slab in an effort to free itself in its agony. The flesh makes a tearing sound, fur and blood fleck across you and it. “I am making you the best you can be!” You hiss though gritted teeth holding the writing beast. “This is for your own good, after everything I’ve done for you and this is how you repay me?” You keep pressing the saw until you hear it grind through the bone. P13 kicks madly its chest heaving with pain, gnashing its teeth. The saw sparks when it hits the cybernetic rods. 89P13 red eyes bulging as it tries to free itself. You let the metal on metal continue to spark until it smokes and only then do you ease up allowing P13 to lie there with its own torn arm.

“Someone get general surgery in here,” you instruct and depart. 

It is time for 89P11’s daily identification tests. You hope this time you don’t have to gouge its other eye out. Optical will throw a fit if you do. 

This is not the end of P13’s antics. It tries to escape four more times over the next several months. The second time it only makes it as far as the end of the hall, trying to override the lock system by the doors. You burn its foot and it struggles so hard it dislodges one of the bolts in its ankle. It shuffles about and whines for three days. The third time it is found all the way in the east wing and you have the nerves in its left arm fried for it.  The fourth times it is punished similarly after being discovered in the tunnels beneath the building and shooting a guard in the back, meaning it must have found its way into one of the gun safes. You hook its cerebral enhancements up to wiring and wipe the data from its mind. You watch its head vibrate and its eye pinch shut the entire time, which is the better part of a day. You snap its right arm for good measure and slowly pull out its claws.

The fifth time 89P13 makes it as far as the northern wall, caught and subdued by guards trying to use a laser to burn out a hole. You punish it again and move it to a more secure cell after its punishment. The sixth attempts the closest. 89P13 actually makes it out, beyond the walls and off into the forest. The drones catch it trying to scale a tree. Why does feels the impulse to flee? Why else would it keep risking punishment over and over? What could be driving it? It barely responds to nods of yes and no. You stay up all night, observing it as it miserably lies in its cage. You study its shambling movements, its dull patchy fur, its lethargic tail and swollen tongue, inflamed from the punctures of the muzzle. Finally, you realize it with a bemuse laugh. They are full grown by now and you did choose Procyon for their instincts after all. What instinct is stronger than that the one to breed? You have 89P13 castrated the next day. It shrieks and twists, eyes laced with fury as if it knows the indignity that is being done to it.


	6. Chapter 6

You begin imputing new data into the remaining subjects. Not just aerodynamics, weaponry, engineering and data processing but other things too. Other forms of knowledge, speech, reasoning, languages. Many of the Terran tongues, Askavarian, Asguardian, Kree, Groot, Ghra and three dialects of Kippick among them. The subjects respond well with 89P12 the first to vocalize. It speaks what you think is an Askavarian word. It improves on the puzzles, it constructs cannons quicker and its aim improves. It’s the water chamber that does it in eventually. P11 and P13 pass it well enough, but P12 cannot complete the puzzle on the locking mechanism before the tank fills with water. You watch as the water touches the panel in its chest and the electricity goes static, sending flashes wracking its body before it jostles violently and goes limp. Such a disappointment. It’s down to 11 and 13 now. 

“Look!” One of the surgeons exclaims the following morning in the operating room P13’s skull has been carved open again, blood framing its head and tangling in the fur. It is strapped to the gurney, conscious and eyes wide, one strap keeping its mouth fixed shut. The surgeon sticks a finger in 13’s nervous system and its right arm flails. “I can make it dance!” The left leg kicks violently as they move their finger a quarter inch to the right and pinch another nerve. Then its other arm spasms out though its first remains clenched. You watch its little form move to the commands of the surgeons prodding finger for several minutes. 13 only watches you, its breath painfully sucking in with each involuntary movement. Wires and tubes jostle each time its body twitches. Red and blue wires snake through its arms and legs, hooked into the ports of its collar bones and its back, the base of its neck. The wiring undulates as P13’s head snaps around letting out an anguished cry. 

“Get your fingers out of there,” you snap. “You’re going to fuck up its motor function.”

“We’re working on its…”

“Not today,” you correct, reaching for the clamps 13 follows the instrument with frantic eyes, what fur it has left stands on end and its tail goes stiff. “Today we’re working on its vocal chords.”

It takes three more operations before P13 speaks. You finish on its brain and close up its skull, re-sealing it and let it lay on the table in its restraints. Its muzzle is off, jaws hanging open, body limp. You watch its eyes dart back and forth, its breathing going in and out in adrenaline fueled succession but still it lays there on its back.

“89P13. 89P13 do you register?” You double check that the wiring from its subcarinal implants are working, the wires properly attached. They extend in an array from its frontal cortex to the base of its skull near the hippocampus all different colors twisting outward and hooked into monitors. According the real-time scans it can hear and understand you. “89P,” smack its left hand with your electric prod and the subject turns its head away, closing its mouth swallowing and gulping. It makes a wracked rasping sound. 

“Hrrrrs,” it whispers. Your fingers hover over your data bad.

“Speak up,” you command. P13 shakes its head, face crumbling. “Huuuurrrs,” it moans. It tries again, trying to manipulate its jaws and move its tongue. “H….hh….h…uurt….” it tries, “hurts.” It finally manages to say. You nod, logging P13’s first words in its daily report.


	7. Chapter 7

It still takes a while for the subjects to speak full words. But their knowledge of weapons increases, and the competency climbs day by day. You introduce new things. Rockets, spacecrafts, rocket launchers. They learn each with ease. P11 is especially adept at the mazes and close range combat you observe as it slices its enhanced claws through a trekkel man’s throat. Thank the stars for the Kree and the battle slaves they are willing to loan out as training tools. The trekkel man sputters, holding his throat and collapses. P11 leaps off his chest and spins, leaping up to crouch on the metal wall of the maze. It peers through the scope of its rifle and identifies the next target, taking it out easily and dashing the rest of the way through the labyrinth to make it out on the other side.  53 seconds. Better than 13’s measly minute and a half.

\---

“Now let’s try again,” you admonish, P13 is strapped into a chair across from you. Dozens of wires are fed into its skull through the cybernetics.  Its wrists and ankles are bound, as well as its neck but it is no longer muzzled. Dried blood crusts to the corners of its mouth and its tongue is still inflamed. You hold up a picture of an Ionan M8K17. “What is this?” P13 looks at you, looks at the image. It tries to shift in its seat and mutters a growling chitter sound. You reach across the table and whack it in the stomach harshly. “Use your words P13!” It curls inward, whining and huffing for air. “What. Is This?” It stares at you and then tries again, its voice taunt.

“R…iiiifl,’ you nod

“Yes, rifle.” One of the handlers give P13 a pellet. It devours the thing and looks expectantly for another.

“How do you remotely detonate a Zen Wobarian land mind?” You inquire. 89P13 thinks for a moment then opens its mouth, begins to make that annoying chittering sound but stops,

“C….c…cooode,” it swallows each word slowly. You nod, and you continue interrogating P13 for the next three hours. Between its incessant chitters and squeaks and its difficulty to speak you have to open it up again for reprogramming. When you lower the knife down to cut into its throat it snatches your wrist, growling. Your hand trembles as you look into those pupil-less eyes. You use your other hand to make a fist and bang it against the hardware in its temple. It shudders and releases you from its grip. You cut and watch its larynx vibrate while it screams.

\---

You hold the syringe precariously, the bright florescent surgical lights illuminating P13’s pulverized insides. Its foot jitters and its head lolls, eyes moving rapidly behind its closed lids. It passed out when you opened its flesh. 

“Tighter,” you do not miss the apprehensive gazes of your assistance as they pull the hooks farther towards them, one on each side. P13’s scarred flesh is tough but not unbreakable, the hooks yank hard against the resisting flesh which eventually tears opening its body cavity to reveal the rest of the organs. Stomach, liver, the diaphragm. You blink, motioning for the surgical vacuum to continue sucking away the blood that obscures your line of sight. There, you grin behind your mask. The cybernetic implant just under the stomach. You aim the wide hollow needle in and begin the press the fluid downward. A mixture of your own creation. The needle pierces the pulsing pink stomach lining and P13 strains suddenly, tail dashing and claws stretching. Your assistance look at its face as you continue driving the mixture down into its stomach. Watching the dark green substance thread through the natural pink, tainting it as it spreads like oil.


	8. Chapter 8

 “It’s awake,” one of your assistance huffs exasperated. Indeed P13’s eyes blink, filmy at first and then it focusses on you. That is when you realize 86P13 has discovered emotion. Fury. You jab the needle in further and you do not wince as the stomach wall makes a sickening pop, acid spurting onto your face shield. 13 arches its back against the straps holding it down and lets out a hissing cough. You drive the rest of the alloy down into its stomach and retract the needle quickly. P13 fights to keep its eyes open but it cannot do so for long. You watch its mouth work to say something, but its words are lost in a gurgle of blood and bile as it vomits and chokes. Your assistant reaches a hesitant finger into its jaws and scoops out the liquid.

“Gross,” the whine, grimacing as they wipe the green yellow liquid on P13’s fur. You have the others stitch P13 back together, the stitches piercing through tender scar tissue.  You swear you can feel its eyes on you as you turn your back and let the doors close.

\---

“G…g….gggd?” 89P11 looks through the one-way glass, it knows enough to understand that it is being observed through that window. You press a button to your right and a small pellet is dispensed in the testing room. P11 grabs it with nimble paws and eats it with glee.

P13 is next. It glares at you when you and the handlers fetch it out of its cage. Its awkwardly shuffles forward instead of back into a corner. An interesting development you make note of. It bares its teeth and its claws are already out, ready. The handler gives you a tentative glance and you nod for them to reach in with the restraining collar. P13 crouches on all fours and attacks at once, biting and trying to unhook the collar from the pole. The handler shakes it, trying to dislodge P13’s grip and bashing it against the walls of the cage as they do so. Still P13 attempts to gnaw at the plastic pole. Enough of this. You instruct the handler to retract the device and you reach in yourself. P13 leaps at your gloved hands but even its enhanced teeth can’t get through vibration fabricated gloves. You squeeze your fingers around its neck and press the button on your wrist band. This time the cybernetics in its arms and legs suddenly lengthen inside its limbs, stretching the muscles and bones. It isn’t by much, but it’s enough. P13 yelps and falls to the ground. You yank it out of the cage by the scruff of its neck.

“You were going to have a big treat today 13. Your final test for this stage of your development. But seeing as you’ve been so rude, you’ll have to be disciplined first.”

“Nnn…n..no…” it whines. You shake it violently at its insolence until P13’s head sways.

“Repeat after me 13,” you instruct as you march down the sterile corridors to one of the testing rooms. “Everything I do is for your own…?” you wait. P13 stares downward at itself and you move your hands around to its neck, squeezing.

“G…gooood!” It howls, tail swooshing.

“Precisely.” 

You reach the pressure chamber and P13 begins to madly twist, trying to escape your hold as you near the large black iron box. 

“N….n,” it whimpers, “pls…p…p…p…p,” you press another button on your wristband and P13 curls in on itself in agony, repulses fired through its brain tissue stabbing pain alighting each nerve. It claws at its head for relief.

“Stop stuttering,” you sigh exasperated and drop 13 down into the well-like container. It scrambles up the bare walls and you go to close the lid, pausing as its little paws cling to the rim.  “You have to be disciplined,” you repeat softly. “You cannot attack me or the handlers. I am only trying to make you,”

“B….e…betttr,” it stammers. You nod.

“Now, what do we say to people who are trying to help you?” P13 blinks and lets its back paws go from the side of the chamber, sliding down a little.

“Taaa…tank…tank…yuuu.” You move a finger to the button again, “thaaank y…y,” it coughs, “you. Thankk yoo!” You grin,

“That’s right,” you close slam the lid shut and P13 lets out a cry as its little paws crack under the weight. You have P13 in the pressure chamber for five hours. Luckily the device is sound proof. You can’t have its animal chittering and yowling as you are trying to work.

P13 gets sick after its time in the chamber. It lays in its cage drifting in and out of consciousness and tears at its flesh in distress making small but effective cuts. It soils itself and does not drink or eat. You debate euthanizing it. In that time P11 expires. One of the behaviorists over-estimated its abilities and tested its aptitude against one of the kree battle slaves. This results in its spinal cybernetic panel being crushed. It lies on the floor and finally dies as the electricity overrides its system, burning its bones and shorting out its circulatory system.

P13 is the only remaining subject.


	9. Chapter 9

 P13 slowly improves over the course of several weeks. You notice its eyes get clearer, less glossy. Someone has been sneaking it extra food, you can tell as much by its weight gain. Finaly you determine it is ready for the final test in this stage of development. In the testing room you press the intercom.

“This is a simple test P13, shoot the target.” P13 stands in large testing room. It is posed upright, quelian M8A19 over its shoulder. It looks at its target who is currently on its knees, tears in its eyes.

“Please,” the orthopedic surgeon begs, hands cuffed before them. “I never wanted to do any of those things to you!” P13 stands before it, right at level with their face. It blinks. “I tried to help you remember?” They continue hysterical. You watch behind the glass and purse your lips. So, it true. You knew it, that stupid sentimental human.  You glance at P13’s brain scans as it stands there seemingly indifferent. “I…I helped you escape remember? Gave you the security codes!” P13 looks through the scope of the gun. “I fed you when you were sick!” The surgeon yells, voice breaking.

P13’s brain scans glow different colors over the images of its brain. Red, yellow, blue each lighting up different areas. You wonder if P13 has discovered emotions, another troublesome side effect but they have been tempered thus far by the phycological conditioning. Or so you assumed. “Please, I’m so sorry.” The surgeon wails, holding out its hands to P13 helplessly. “I never agreed to what was being done to you, to any of you!” Sweat beads down their brow. “I’m so sorry, I know that’s no excuse. Please…please just…just don’t shoot,” they body shakes as P13 bares its teeth and narrows its eyes, moving one clawed paw around the trigger. “I…I can still help you!” They resort to fantasies. “I can get you out of here P13! I can help you! I can…” You lean in closer to the glass, P13 has the trigger pulled but has not released. You see it’s raccoon face grimace. The gun in its grip shakes.

“P13,” you sing song through the intercom.

“PLEASE! I’M SO SOSORRYIDIDNTMEANTOHURTYOU! I JUST WANT TO HELP! P13 YOU CAN…” there is a bang and the orthopedic surgeons head snaps backward, there body crumbling. Blood smatters across the white wall behind them. P13 lowers its weapon starring at the body.

“D….dddnt waaant to….to…to…no…noo….n..no,” it shakes, you can see nerves pulsing under its taunt ashen flesh. It drops the gun clattering to the floor. “D…don’t…..w…w…wan…pl….pleeees.”

“Very good P13. Just one more test for today.”

13 looks through the glass at you, its eyes wide, whiskers twitching. From the far end of the room a small door opens, and you watch a raccoon crawl through. P13’s head snaps around to see the animal and it sniffs. 13’s sow sniffs back, it can still recognize its offspring and it patters closer, crouching on its hind legs to stand up. 13 straightens, looking with apprehension but picks up its gun. 13’s sow leans in closer to its offspring, reaching up with an incredulous paw to feel at 13’s arm. 13 springs backward, gun ready. 

“Shoot the target P13,” you command. P13 looks at its sow with an odd affinity. It creeps closer, looking at 13 with its dark eyes and sniffing. It chitters, P13’s ears twitch but it hefts its gun reloading and takes aim. Its sow squeaks, cocking its head and pawing at the barrel of the weapon. “Shoot the target P13. Do not make me ask again.” 13 curls its lips in a snarl and feels its little fingers around the trigger. The raccoon stretches upward its arms reaching for 13’s face. You suck in a breath as 13 looks at it, the gun slipping just a little. Its body relaxes when its sows’ little paws go through its fur clinging to it. It licks 13’s face and nuzzles it. 13 stands still, heart rate and breathing slowing, slowing…BAM! The raccoon is obliterated so strikingly similar to the orthopedic surgeon, falling with a dull thud and this time the spray of blood and brain tissue and fur is smaller. 13

“Well done P13,” you allow two grapes to be dispensed. “Did you like that test?” P13 looks at you through the glass, its eyes shifting for a moment before looking up at you.

“Yees….t…hankkk…y…y…y..ou.”


	10. Chapter 10

You get the message on your beeper at 03:43:21. “RED ALERT.” You blot out of bed, grabbing your electrical prongs and your coat dashing from your dormitory to the lab. You hear the gunfire before anything else and curse to yourself as you burst through the doors into chaos. 

“Alert, alert, alert!” The alarms sound, spinning red lights through the dark halls.  A guard runs past you, frantically cursing. 

“What’s going on…” You stumble as something sharp hits you in the back of your knee and you fall. You hear a yowl and a scream and try to pull yourself up, limping through the shadowy halls towards P13’s cage. What is happening? Your mind spins as you drag yourself to the doors and slam your ID badge on the scanner. It beeps red and spits sparks making you stumble back, grunting in pain. “System override.” You curse, peering through the thin windows in at the cages and your breath catches. 89P13’s cage is empty. You turn around and scream as another bolt of burning pain hits you in your left leg. Your knees give and you crash to the ground. A technician runs past you pressing a weeping bandage to their face. “Alert, alert, alert.” The red lights glare making your head spin and you try desperately to orient yourself. You will make for the main corridor of the building and you slowly claw at the wall, inching along. Why are the halls so long? You stumble over something and look down, your stomach revolting. A handler is slumped against the wall, its mouth gaping. They have no eyes, just bloody dark holes. Scratch marks on their neck. You swallow your vomit and continue though everything around you pitches and tilts.

You turn the corner, the alert system blaring in your ears making your brain rattle in your skull. You blink and can just make out four guards and two drones at the other end of the corridor, they turn the corner and are lost. You teeter, stumbling farther and slowly descend to the ground. There’s a boom sound that sends you vomiting and a flash of orange light and hot air that breezes past you. Smoke fills the hall, itching your eyes as you cough and try to clear it away. 

Your legs. You cannot feel your legs anymore. Something sticky and deep maroonish red is spreading out around you, slow and taunting. You sweat, you shake. The floor is cold. You look around the wide hallway and the lights above flicker, sparking and going out. But you can still see the others. They are dead. A bullet in Breva’s neck. A few more in Utal. Several feet away Quarn is still moaning. Your head is heavy, it hurts to blink. Your arms tremble trying to hold you up though your legs…your legs are useless. You try to cover your ears over the sound of gunfire, but you fall flat on your face into the unforgiving floor. The bullets are so loud, so pounding they shake your brain in your skull. You hear the echos of screaming the carnivorous snarl of something some creature. You will yourself to look up once more, checking both ends of this hallway that is so, so long. To the right, you see the feet of a dead orderly. To the left you can make out the scraping of claws against metal and the smell of gunpowder. You try to crawl forward towards the double doors, but hot rods of pain spike up your legs and into your hips like lightening and you pant, hanging your head to stare dizzy at the ground. That smell, that metallic smell of blood, you know it well. Only now does it terrify you. The pitter patter gets louder, interrupted every so often by more gun fire. The sound of flesh being torn, ripped and broken, screaming, crying. Begging. More snarling. Your brain tells you to get away, make it through the double doors. Your body cannot comply. It is to hurt, too tired. Still you drag yourself further, so close…so close to the doors. You can see through the crack underneath, you swallow mouth dry. So close, your heart bounds with each agonizing movement. So close so….

  _Click click._

You blink slowly, and your breath shudders. This time it is not from the fiery throbbing in your legs or the hammering in your head. 

“W….where….r….roo…ket?” 89P13’s graveling voice asks. It stands before you, those eyes. Red and large and yet filled with nothing.  It holds its stolen gun with one paw, aimed squarely at your head.  It’s whiskers twitch, it’s tail lashes. “W….w…were roo ketts?”

It’s eyes narrow, as you struggle to make out what it is saying.  The fur covering its body is thin and patchy. Looking at its neck you can see the flesh pulse, moving with every inflection of its words. It snarls, pointed white teeth painted pink with blood. You close your eyes, trying to focus but your brain feels too tight in your skull and you are spinning even though you know you are staying still. Your right leg twitches and you curse with the flash of white pain. 89P13 holds its gun steady, swallowing, looking at you with those eyes. Those pupil-less eyes. Soulless. “Rookts!” It barks, then winces as though the speaking has caused it pain. You can see it, under the grey and brown fur, the bulbous scared flesh of its body. Pus and dried blood crust around the implants in its collar bones. The cybernetics under its temple, the skin stretched tightly over it so that you can see the protrusion. It’s chest heaves in and out…in in in…out. In…in…in…out…out….ouuuut. It shakes as it stands, swaying. You can see the augmentations in its hips, it’s chest. And still it is not complete, 89P13 snarls once more foaming at the mouth even as it’s body wavers. It is a half-formed thing. Incomplete. “Wheres…rckts?” You look from gun to where the double doors are still shut. “Weapons Bay 753210” reads the sign above. Missiles, ships, rockets and the like.

“Aaaarrrghhh,” Quarn groans, though it has less breath behind it than before. 89P13 keeps looking at you with those red eyes, keeps the gun pointed at you but reaches with its other paw for its sidearm and points without looking. There’s an ear-splitting bang and Quarn goes silent.  You glance at your bloodied wrist, the armband that can control the cybernetics from within P13. Of course! You move to push a small blue button and curse as P13’s claws wrack down your tender skin. Its pointed teeth latch on to the wristband no matter how hard to try to pry it off. But you are so tired you can barely move. The band comes loose with a snap and P13 steps backward, gun aimed once more. This time it clutches the wristband between its teeth. The lights flicker again in uneven succession, and you feel the throbbing in your lower body get worse. The initial numbness that comes with adrenaline after being wounded now receding. Giving way to agony.  P13 bites down, the metal crunching under its enhanced jaws. You watch its body shudder as the cybernetics within send electric shocks through the nervous system, stretch the metal rods in its limbs. But P13 only looks at you, snarling as it shreds the wristband, withstanding the agony as best it can, one eye twitching as the socket behind it malfunctions. You watch in horror as P13 spits the band out, a crumpled piece of metal.

“Ro..ckts!” 89P13 clicks its gun, bloody foam dripping from its muzzle. It’s flesh twinges and it takes a labored breath. A piece of flesh is stuck in the top right of its teeth. You wonder who it came from. “Ro….roccckts! Where?” It is then you understand, and you point with one trembling finger at the doors behind the animal. 89P13 cocks its head like a canine in confusion, those eyes widen, ears perking upward. It drops it’s sidearm and raises its enhanced arm to its chest, pointing with one clawed finger to itself. “Rookett?” It asks. Its voice is small and low and soft and…hopeful? “Rookt?” it repeats almost to itself.  The light above the two of you sparks, sending streams of light downward illuminating the battered little experiment.  89P13 is still pointing at itself. It is a child. A child who does not understand the nature of its existence. “Roccct!” It growls hiccuping in pain and the moment is shattered. You jab your finger to indicate behind him once more and blink. Why is your vision going fuzzy at the edges? You feel warm and cold all at once. The moment is shattered, 89P13 looks over its thin shoulder at the doors and then back to you. Its eyes are so red, pools of blood. It’s pulverized body stumbles but it catches itself, hacking in its own pain. It presses the cold barrel to your skull, but you can hardly feel it. It looks at you, those eyes you first saw the day you cut open it’s sow and brought it into the world. The scabs on its left implant break and red blood trickles from its clavicle. It bares its teeth, snarling at you and you feel it’s hatred. It’s malice, it’s agony. It wants to kill you. It will kill you, you realize this slowly. Your body is too exhausted to care. It says something you cannot understand and for a moment you think you can see tears in its eyes as its body tenses and pulls the trigger backward. It shakes, it’s tail now still. Every hair on end. Its gaunt flesh is inflamed, and you can smell the chemicals, the blood, the infection on it. 89P13 lets out an agonized shriek and you close your eyes, knowing what is coming. There is a bang, but it does not hit you. 

You open your eyes, though your lids feel so, so heavy. You are still alive. For now, you think as you see what you realize has been your own blood all along expanding outward from your legs. You try to focus, you see the double doors swinging and a ringed tail flickers before disappearing behind the doors.


	11. Chapter 11

Somehow, remarkably you live. Nova Corps officers pull you from the wreckage of the collapsed building. You are promptly arrested for illegal genetic and cybernetic experimentation on lower life forms. That is what the officer says to you as they transport you to a Xandarian prison to await trial. You do not know if your data files or log entries survived the blast. You wait, patiently in your cell, declining to speak to anyone or engage in any fights with the other prisoners. You think about 89P13. Did it too die in the blast? All your hard work blown to bits? Or did it somehow manage to escape the compound? If it did, was it still somewhere on Halfworld, roaming the forests alone? Did it make it off the planet? You try to ask one of the Officers when they escort you to the trial, but they do not know. There has been no sign of 89P13 since the initial catastrophe.  During the trial they make you re-watch the salvaged video footage. The tests, the puzzles, every beating, every cry. You know what they are doing. They are trying to stir within you some inexorable guilt. They will not succeed for you have done nothing wrong. You watch these clips thinking about all the possibilities, the missed opportunities. You are unanimously found guilty. You stay in your cell for the most part, only leaving to get meals and use the bathroom. You stay in that place for a number of years. You do not know the exact time. One day you hear talk of a Kree fanatic, an imminent attack on Xandar. A few days later you hear that a group of five were able to defeat the accuser and save the planet. You do not know anymore then that. You remain in your cell, stewing in fantasies of what you could have accomplished. You wonder if 89P13 is out there somewhere. When you see one of the guards beating or torturing a fellow prisoner you imagine that prisoner is 89P13 and you are the one holding the rod.

\---

When the snap happens, you are spared. The judge who sentenced you is not. While the rest of the prisoners flee in the chaos you remain. You know it will be better to stay and get out later on good behavior if you remain calm and unassuming and stay where you are. You are right. When those who were snapped out of existence return those who broke out of the Klyn are found and thrown back in this time with no hope of leaving. You however are let out on good behavior. Though you are never allowed to receive funding for research or ever find employment at any laboratories across the galaxy. Even the ravagers with whom you once traded units for equipment and subjects refuse to deal with you. You find a quiet place to live on one of the Xandarian sister planets. You live a small life. Holden up in your living room trying to copy all the work that was destroyed. Your sense of time begins to slip from your consciousness. You sometimes go for a walk in the nearby park or to get food but not very often. You hardly eat anyway, or sleep. The loss of all your progress, your life’s work consumes you. You furiously recall notes you made, experiments you did, the results, the lack thereof and you feverishly write them down in journals, when you run out of journals you write on the walls.  You live this way for years, they fade into nothing in your mind. 

You come home late from the store. Had to get bread and some onions and broth. It’s been three weeks since you last left your home. It is dark when you enter your apartment. You turn your back to lock the door behind you and turn around to pick up your bag, shuffling in forward towards the kitchen. You stop short. There is a draft. You feel the cold fresh air glide across the living room prickling your skin with nervous anticipation. You always keep the windows locked. You grimace but continue walking to the kitchen and…. those eyes. Your heart lurches, stomach dropping. It can’t be. Something behind you creeks, you cry out as something sharp and rough seizes both of your wrists and winds around your torso. You try to wriggle free, but the long-healed wounds in each of your legs still causes driving arching pain. You try to angle your head enough to see that which has grabbed you and your jaw drops. A flora colossus. You’ve never seen a live one. Only read about them, only worked on samples. Its large hands easily pin your arms to your side, its flexible but though vines threatening to squeeze the air from your lungs. Such power. To think, with a subject like this… you could do so much. Infinite possibilities. With the right equipment you could…something hard and metallic is wedged into your mouth. You try to gulp at the air as you turn and nearly choke.


	12. Chapter 12

Subject 89P13’s incredulous face glares at you, it’s wet sniffing nose inches from your own.

“Don’t think about it, don’t even think about it,” it snarls murderously. “Get whatever sick thoughts you have out of your head, or I’ll blow them out the back of your skull.” It waits a moment, appraising you with those beady red eyes. With no pupils it is impossible to tell exactly where it is focusing. You squirm, your tongue trying to work its way around the device in your mouth. P13 smirks, you think it is a smirk. It is hard to tell. “Heard they let you out after everyone came back,” it reaches for device in your mouth and removes it. You cannot help but a shiver of fear. A grenade, or at least some version of one.

“Your….your vocabulary has improved,” you observe. P13 raises a brow, twirling the key to the explosive around its finger. It wears clothes now, a utilitarian looking jumpsuit, and it bares more fur then last you saw, silky and thick. Healthy. Though you can still see the two cybernetic implants on its collar bones. You try to move your arms, but the flora colossus holds you fast, your arms trembling with the effort.

“Say Groot, how do you think you make a humie into a monster?”

“I am Groot,” the creature rumbles. You can feel its deep voice vibrate through the bark that holds at you no matter how hard you try to wriggle free. P13 nods,

“That’s right,” it praises. “Go ahead.” Whatever the flora said is lost to you, but you sense its hesitation as P13 glares up at it.

“C’mon Groot, you said you’d help me out!” There is a moment of heavy silence. You cry out as white snapping pain shatters through your arms and legs. Your vision swims as you fall to the ground. Both your arms and legs broken with a simple tightening of vines. P13 grins, its pointed teeth reflecting in the light through the open window. “Don’t dry doc,” 13 mocks as your eyes fill with stinging tears, “I’m just trying to make you feel better.” It steps closer to you its claws out…out of every modification you made why didn’t you ever take the claws out? You wince as it climbs up on top of you, its weight pressed against your lower back. Your limbs twinge with burning agony the arms and vines of the flora colossus clamping down is the only reason you don’t topple over. “Tsch, tsh, tsch you humies are scrawny.” Its little claws puncture through your sides drawing blood where it crouches. “Your gonna need some enhancements.”

“S….st…stop…s” your words are lost to the sharp slicing of flesh as P13’s tears at your shoulder blades. You scream, and nearly fall to the floor but the wooden arms hold tight. You can feel your blood running down your sides, watching it glide down your arms. You hear the tear of flesh P13’s claws ripping at you.

“Now, now, now what do we say to people who are just trying to make you feel better?” You bite your tongue against the pain, and you let a shriek as something cold is wedged into your open back. P13 hops down and faces you again, those soulless eyes gleaming. “What do you say?” 13 demands and lifts its arm up, a shiver runs through your spine. A wristband, nearly identical to the one you once wore. You let out a low moan “use your words!” The moan rises to a cracking scream when you feel white hot branches of electricity fire through your tender swollen muscles, striking against your bones. Your vision blurs and your stomach revolts. “We’re gonna play a little game,” P13 continues as the electricity ebbs. It pulls yet another firearm from its belt. “Can you identify this weapon?” You stare at the gun in its paws, small, black and brown metal, you realize with a start that you have no idea. Your blood runs cold, face paling.  “What is it?” P13 asks again, examining the weapon with a chilling fondness. You muster a sniveling laugh,

“Your impressive P13,” you raise your exhausted head to look at it. “You’ve advanced far beyond anything I thought capable. I ought to congratulate myself.” A vicious hiss and you let out a wail as P13’s claws grab a fistful of your hair and wrenches your head up, neck cracking. You twist feebly but the Flora colossus still holds you hostage. 13 hisses something indistinguishable putting the gun under your chin.

“Why’d you do it?” It growls in your ear, holding your head up, the darkness twirls before you. “Why?!” 13 cries, you can feel its arms shaking the gun clinking lightly.

“Why did I create you?” You laugh a little, of course…it is only natural that such a thing would begin to inquire about its own existence.   “Why not?” You smile through the numb aching in your limbs, the crick in your neck. You manage to angle your head to the left, so that you can barely see P13’s red eyes in your periphery. “I wanted to see if it could be done,” you grin at your own youthful naïve dreams. “There was no purpose,” you force the words through your teeth, “no great plan or scheme for you or any of the other subjects.” The grip on your hair constricts, the gun pressed hard against your flesh. “You weren’t made for anything but my own amusement 89P13, and for the glory of scientific and technological advancement.” You suck air through your throat over the pain in your raw back, “what greater purpose could there possibly be?” P13 shudders beside you, tightening its paw around the grip of gun. “It wasn’t easy either,” you reflect. “Your heart stopped over twelve times during the procedures. I kept having to revive you. And that one time an intern snipped some nerve endings and you were brain dead for four days. You were no easy feat to create.”

Silence. Only your own breath, and its own breath, both wheezing.

“I died?” It wonders, “I should have died…” it thinks allowed. “I wanted to die.” You recall subject 89P16 who unbeknownst to it or not, succeeded in that endeavor when it clawed out its implants.

“Oh yes 89P13 by all accounts your brain and heart stopped functioning a total of seventeen times in the procedures or during conditioning.”

More silence.

“Can yah undo it?” It finally asks, that same small low tone you heard so many years ago. Timid and filled with a longing hope. Your body lists as the flora colossus grip loosens for a moment. You force yourself to turn looking at the wooden face. Those large watery eyes laced with hurt and sorrow, looking at 89P13 with unyielding empathy. “Can you undo it!” 13 begs, wrenching your hair so that your head bends to the side, neck strained. “Undo it! Undo all the shit you did to me! Turn me back!" Tears prick at the edge of its eyes. "Turn me back to whatever I was before…you fucked me up! Before…before…” and with that something seems to break inside of it lowers the gun, letting go of your hair. You rub the back of your neck though your arm protests with shoots of pain. A cool haunting breeze teases your hair through the open window, goosebumps puckering on your skin. P13 stands before you, tail lashing. You haul yourself to your knees.

“You’d give up all you’ve learned?” You challenge, “you’d have all your strength and knowledge and abilities stripped of you to be a…a mute dumb animal groveling in the dirt?” 13’s eyes shift from its feet to your own gaze and you feel your spine twinge in fear. “Even if I could….” You smother your fright under your ego, “I would never forsake a lifetime of work to unmake you, a perfect weapon…a perfect little monster.” P13 flinches and the flora colossus rumbles. It lifts the gun once more, aiming squarely between your eyes. Though your mind and adrenaline compel you to run your body is too tired, to swollen and nauseated with agony. P13 glares at you, its stance firm but its body shakes, the gun rattling. Its feverish eyes burn with vitriol, every hair on end. You wait for it, expecting it, it is fitting really like all the tales. The creator destroyed by their own creation.  

You shake, your heart thundering, breath heaving. You think you break a rib from the effort, but you cannot feel it through the ocean of other agonies. You look at P13, its red glowing eyes boring into you and that is when you realize it with a blood curdling horror that this animal has created you as much as you have created it. 13 whispers something, and you watch the gun clatter to the floor. All is slow and silent then, your own uneven breaths in slow motion.

“I am Groot,” the flora rumbles with vitriol. Something sharp slices through your neck, splintering. You gag, hands going to your throat and feeling shards of bark slick with something sap like but too thin. Your vision wanes as your gurgle something red and liquid, tongue tasting something warm and metallic. Your vision tunnels, head in a fog, at the end of that tunnel is P13, it stares down at you as you fall. This pathetic little specimen, this pulverized beast, this freak of nature. All it knows is how to kill and reign destruction, its paws will never grace another’s hand. It will never know love or affection, there is nothing it can conceive but instruments of pain and death. It will never make anything beautiful. You have made it so. You think with smug satisfaction even as your eyes grow heavy and your breath light, blood slicking over your fingers. If 89P13 attempts to go against its nature and reach out to another, if it tries to form connection or feel compassion or empathy, it will only be because it is trying to rebel against its natural tendencies, and it will fail of course. Even its efforts to be something more than what it is will be because of you. Even if it tries to prove it is not a monster. It will always be a monster. There is not enough blood going to your brain. Your heart beats out of rhythm with the shock of losing so much of the vital substance so suddenly. You are chilled. You see those red eyes glowering down at you see them until you cannot see anything anymore. But you die knowing Subject 89P13 has made it through its development. You have succeeded.


	13. Chapter 13

You will never know how wrong you are. You do not live to see 89P13 scamper out the open window, down into the dark alley way, rain soaking its fur and causing the pain in its cybernetics to twinge. You never see it huff for breath, pumping out ineffable emotions. You never see its ears flick as it hears something rummaging around in the dumpster and on impulse it shoots. Once, twice, three times. You will never see the look on its face as it stares down at what it has done. A young raccoon lies decimated, six revken bullets in its belly. You are not privy to the tears that fill 89P13’s so called soulless eyes. Tears of horror as it slumps against the brick and slides down to try and imbed itself in the concrete. You do not see the flora colossus follow and sit down beside P13. You never witness the two sitting there in that dark dank alley, your blood still seeping into the cracks of the flora’s bark. You never see how the flora sits like a sentinel beside 89P13. It knows to offer no words of comfort. 89P13 sits for a long time and many thoughts and emotions rush through its enhanced mind, many more courses through its shattered little heart. It does not yet have the words for these emotions. It will sit there in that alley until it shivers from the cold and its cybernetics shorten out in the water and it twitches, bracing with the pain it lives with every moment of every day, aching in its body. A constant reminder of what you have done to it. A constant reminder that it is only here because of what you did to it. You never see 8913 vomit in a puddle in that alley way nor see the flora eventually draw itself up and take 89P13 wordlessly in its long arms, trying to smooth out the water-logged fur with the same deft hands that slit your throat.

You never see 89P13 go back to the ship where there are others waiting for it. You never know that it was subject 89P13 who helped save Xandar. You never know that it is 89P13 who helped defeat Thanos and restore balance to the universe. You do not know that 89P13 drinks itself into a stupor trying to drown its memories, trying to drink until it no longer feels self-hatred when it looks at the grotesque mess of flesh and metal in the mirror. You do not hear it languidly cry in anguish at the nightmare’s night after night, nor do you observe that hollowed look in its eyes after five nights without sleep. You never look on while it builds a complete fertilizer and photosynthesizer for a tiny flora colossus. You never marvel at the elemental sword it makes for the Zen Wobari woman or the enhanced sound system for music it constructs for a human man.  You never see it create a memory player to recall happy times with a lost family for the benefit of a Destroyer.

You never stand by as it pushes these same people away.

You never hear the words they say when they tell it it is forgiven.

You never watch as it makes a substance to negate the pain of cybernetics, not for itself. For another woman who has lost nearly as much as it has. You never observe it salvage a Yakka arrow so that another ravager who has lost its purpose may have it and find one.  You never see it conceive of a device where by an empath can temporarily get some peace from the emotions of others.

It will try many times to rip out its cybernetics.

One day it will succeed.  

You do not hear the alarm of those people it has found, people nearly as broken as it is, who find it on the floor and immediately try to fix it. You never hear how they decide not to take it to a medical facility or a lab because they know that would only do worse. You never hover while they learn everything they can about cybernetics. You never witness the human man who uncovers some of your destroyed notes and use it to repair the cybernetics. You do not feel the quick, precise hands of the most dangerous woman in the galaxy as she inserts the piece back into 13’s flesh. You do not marvel at how gingerly she stitches it up, this time the flesh neatly tucks over the metal and the stitches heal clean. You never count the hours that a tattooed destroyer hovers over 13 waiting for it to awaken. You never witness the happy tears of the empath or the flora nor the bemused smile of cyborg woman who murdered Thanos herself. You never see the look on 89P13’s face when it awakens to those who love it. You never feel the arms that embrace it or experience the warm rush of a new emotion 89P13 feels in its little heart. This emotion it never had words for but has felt periodically since it escaped. You do not know that this emotion is not only love. But the willingness to love others and let yourself be loved in turn. To feel deserving of love. You will never know that this family it has found loves it deeply, unconditionally. Not because of what 89P13 is but because of who he is. You created Subject89P13 yes, but that is all you did.  But there is so much more to us then where we came from. We are more than our makers, more than flesh and blood and metal and fur and hair and scars. There is an entire life to be lived beyond our beginnings. You will never understand this. But Rocket will.

 

**_The End_ **

**Author's Note:**

> This is substantially darker and more violent then many of my other fics, please be warned.


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